Page 98 of Wed to the Orc Captive

Tears traced down my cheeks, salt on my lips. He frowned, muttered a curse. “I’ve messed up again. I was supposed to tell you why I loved you. It’s like…it’s like forgetting to tell you you were beautiful that first night. It’s another step I’ve skipped, and I’ve hurt you in the skipping.”

I wanted to tell him he was wrong. I wanted to tell him I didn’t need that much, to pull back into being easier to love. But he wasn’t waiting for my confirmation.

“You’re brave,” he said. “Don’t give me that look. You were brave the day I met you, and you were brave the day you bound yourself to me. You were brave the day you saved my life, in the woods. And then, when I realized the kind of expectations your father had given you, I realized you’d been brave every time you’d spoken to me, every time you’d had the courage to ask me a question or tell me no. You’ve been brave when you pulled me near, and you’ve been brave when you pushed me away. I just want to make you so safe that there’s less of that, yes? That I’m someone you don’t have to be brave for.”

The tears were still slipping down, and I couldn’t wipe them away, because he still had my hands. And I knew I could pull away, knew he’d let me, but I didn’t want to let go, and so I let them run down my cheeks to spatter on our mingled fingers.

“I love your eyes. Not…not the color. I do like the color, but I love seeing your eyes when you look at things. Like when you see a squirrel or some bird, and you just…chirp back and forth and flit around like you’re a forest nymph, all aglow, for every mangy squirrel. You make me want to bring you all the rodents in the world.”

The sound that came out of me was something choked.

“I love how you sing. The way you don’t force it to be pretty, or happy, the way there's beauty and there's triumph when it’s sad. Sometimes there’s this anger in it that makes me feel like I’m not alone, like even if you were angry with me, I could take it, if I just got to still hear you sing.” He breathed deep, and lifted his eyes to mine. “I want to make you happy. I want…to hear you humming around the house, like you do sometimes. I want to listen to you talk and laugh and bicker. I want to be the one you laugh and bicker with. I said before that I didn’t have anything to offer you, but that isn’t true. I have myself. I have a lifetime of doing right by you, of mending what we’ve broken and loving you as I can. And that’s what I swore, outside this kael. I swore I’d be yours, Nora.”

“I’m afraid,” I squeaked. I was crying. “I don’t want to hurt your life. I don’t…I don’t fit here.”

“I only sometimes fit,” he said, “but there are people who want us.”

“They want you.”

“I’m not dominating their affections so much as you believe, Nora. If it came to a row, I think you’d find a lot of them very much on your side.”

I shook my head. “Your friends are kind. Grezha has been kind. But…” My breath trembled. “What if there’s never a place for me here?”

He looked at me, and those twin forges he had for eyes held none of the sarcasm of moons past. “You’re my wife,” he said, and brought both my hands to his mouth, to kiss. “There is room for both of us,” he said, “or there is room for neither of us.”

I gasped.

Maybe this was a terrible idea. I think I said something along those lines. “This is a terrible idea.” I was hiccuping in sobs, and he was smiling. “We don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said. But I knew. I knew that I wanted it to be with him. And when he said, “There is no turn of fate that could make me regret loving you,” I knew I’d given myself wholly back to him.

I leaned towards him and let my lips meet his.

The kiss was sweet with the salt of my tears, with his hands tightening on mine. And the brush of his mouth didn't rush. Whatever this was, we weren't going to skip it. However my heart raced, he was taking this time.

I opened my eyes. “I don’t want to go to Merreborough,” I got out. “I don’t want…a life where you don’t fit. I just…” I pulled in shuddering breaths.

“No one is asking you to leave.” He kissed me. “No one will ask you to go.” And I stopped thinking and surrendered to his arms.

We drank each other in. Time felt false, unreal. His touch, on the back of my neck, on my waist, his fingers in my hair— had he untied my braid?— I was melting into him, and then I wasn’t, I was grabbing onto him, pulling at his shoulders, dragging him to me.

He pulled back, his pupils so wide there was only a thin ring of gold. “We’re wearing too much clothing for this.”

Right.

I stood.

Right.

I got the ties undone, and his hands were helping me pull it off, the dress and then the shift. He craned his neck back. His hands brushed my waist, and my breath caught. “God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured, and there was a knot in my throat.

I squared my shoulders. “You need to stop staring.”

His eyebrows rose, that wolfish grin unmoving. “Why? We’re married.”

I crossed my arms. “Then give me something to stare at.”

He laughed, full-throated, and pulled free the ties to his trousers, let them drop.

“Better?” He still grinned.